Sexism In A Household.

You know that feeling when someone is talking about you REALLY loud when you are totally in earshot. And what they are saying is completely incorrect? Well, my dad is talking to this lady who he met online really loudly on the phone about how I made a mess in the kitchen. Except I wasn’t in the kitchen last night. I was in my room feeling really crappy. I am fairly certain that I have bronchitis (aint nobody got time for that). I just think it is really annoying that he does that. He only says I make the messes because he wants me to clean them. He thinks that because I am the girl in the house, it’s my job to clean up after everyone. Well, sorry but no. I clean the dishes I make and that is it unless I am feeling charitable. That is what it takes to teach my dad to stop being totally sexist. I gotta silently rebel.

This is an ongoing problem in my house. My dad seems to think that I should know how to cook and clean and manage a house. So every time I come to visit, he deliberately pins the job of maid on me. I have told him time and time again that I know how to do these things, I just don’t feel like it is my job to clean after everyone. My dad makes huge messes and just leaves them all over the house expecting me to follow him around and clean everything. I love my dad, and he is generally really good to me, but this literally drives me crazy.

He says he wants me to be able to be a good wife one day. But I honestly don’t want to be the type of woman who sits home and cleans up after everyone anyway. I am going to college for a reason. I want to be a career woman. I want to be a scientist. I want to travel and do my own thing. And maybe one day, when I have had my fill of globe trotting and animal conservation, I will settle down and get married. But even then, I won’t be doing what he wants. I don’t want to get married to some push over. I want someone just as strong willed and goal oriented as I am. And I am pretty sure, at this point, that I don’t want to marry a man.

I really would like to get married one day, but only if I find that one special lady. I also have to worry about whether or not it will be legal by the time I choose to marry. Right now I live in CT, so if I were to stay here, I would be all set. But I would rather die than stay here after my undergrad degree is finally over. My plan is to go to grad school as far away as possible and kiss this state goodbye. I think that I would really like to go to grad school in California, but I haven’t gotten that far yet. So, we shall see.

It just bothers me that everyone in my family tries to socialize me to be their image of a perfect little woman. I have never been that way, and I don’t want to be. I just want to be myself. No wonder I feel like I am trapped all the time. No one here ever wants me to be who I am. Thank god I don’t live with my father and his side of the family. Thank god I have been more dependent than that since I graduated high school. But still, things need to change if I am ever fully going to feel comfortable with myself.